Juvenile Court Statistics 2005. - Office of Juvenile Justice and ...

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Chapter 1: IntroductionIn other communities, the juvenilecourt is not involved in delinquencyor status offense matters until anotheragency (e.g., the prosecutor’s officeor a social service agency) hasfirst screened the case. In otherwords, the intake function is performedoutside the court, and somematters are diverted to other agencieswithout the court ever handlingthem. Status offense cases, in particular,tend to be diverted from courtprocessing in this manner.Since its inception, Juvenile CourtStatistics has adapted to the changingstructure of juvenile court processingnationwide. As court processing becamemore diverse, the JCS seriesbroadened its definition of the juvenilecourt to incorporate otheragencies that perform what can genericallybe considered juvenile courtfunctions. In some communities, datacollection has expanded to includedepartments of youth services, childwelfare agencies, and prosecutors’ offices.In other communities, this expansionhas not been possible. Therefore,while there is extensive datacoverage in the JCS series of formallyhandled delinquency cases and adequatedata coverage of informallyhandled delinquency cases and formallyhandled status offense cases,the data coverage of informally handledstatus offense cases is limitedand is not sufficient to support thegeneration of national estimates. Forthis reason, JCS reports do not presentany information on informallyhandled status offense cases. (Subnationalanalyses of these cases areavailable from the National JuvenileCourt Data Archive [the Archive].)Juvenile Court ProcessingAny attempt to describe juvenilecourt caseloads at the national levelmust be based on a generic model ofcourt processing to serve as a commonframework. In order to analyzeand present data about juvenile courtactivities in diverse jurisdictions, theArchive strives to fit the processingcharacteristics of all jurisdictions intothe following general model:Intake. An intake department (eitherwithin or outside the court) firstscreens referred cases. The intakedepartment may decide to dismissthe case for lack of legal sufficiencyor to resolve the matter formally orinformally. Informal (i.e., nonpetitioned)dispositions may include avoluntary referral to a social serviceagency, informal probation, or thepayment of fines or some form of voluntaryrestitution. Formally handledcases are petitioned and scheduled incourt for an adjudicatory or waiverhearing.Judicial Waiver. The intake departmentmay decide that a case shouldbe removed from juvenile court andhandled instead in criminal (adult)court. In such cases, a petition is usuallyfiled in juvenile court asking thejuvenile court judge to waive juvenilecourt jurisdiction over the case. Thejuvenile court judge decides whetherthe case merits criminal prosecution. 1When a waiver request is denied, thematter is usually then scheduled foran adjudicatory hearing in the juvenilecourt.Petitioning. If the intake departmentdecides that a case should be handledformally within the juvenilecourt, a petition is filed and the caseis placed on the court calendar (ordocket) for an adjudicatory hearing.A small number of petitions are dismissedfor various reasons before anadjudicatory hearing is actually held.1 Mechanisms of transfer to criminal courtvary by State. In some States, a prosecutorhas the authority to file juvenile cases directlyin criminal court if they meet specifiedcriteria. This Report, however, includes onlycases that were initially under juvenile courtjurisdiction and were transferred as a resultof judicial waiver.Adjudication. At the adjudicatoryhearing, a juvenile may be adjudicated(judged) a delinquent or statusoffender, and the case would thenproceed to a disposition hearing. Alternatively,a case can be dismissedor continued in contemplation ofdismissal. In these cases, the courtoften recommends that the juveniletake some actions prior to the finaladjudication decision, such as payingrestitution or voluntarily attendingdrug counseling.Disposition. At the disposition hearing,the juvenile court judge determinesthe most appropriate sanction,generally after reviewing a predispositionreport prepared by a probationdepartment. The range of optionsavailable to a court typically includescommitment to an institution; placementin a group home or other residentialfacility or perhaps in a fosterhome; probation (either regular or intensivesupervision); referral to anoutside agency, day treatment, ormental health program; or impositionof a fine, community service, or restitution.Disposition orders ofteninvolve multiple sanctions and/orconditions. Review hearings are heldto monitor the juvenile’s progress.Dispositions may be modified as aresult. This Report includes only themost severe initial disposition in eachcase.Detention. A juvenile may be placedin a detention facility at differentpoints as a case progresses throughthe juvenile justice system. Detentionpractices also vary from jurisdictionto jurisdiction. A judicial decision todetain or continue detention may occurbefore or after adjudication ordisposition. This Report includesonly those detention actions thatresult in a juvenile being placed in arestrictive facility under court authoritywhile awaiting the outcome of thecourt process. This Report does notinclude detention decisions made bylaw enforcement officials prior tocourt intake or those occurring after2Juvenile Court Statistics 2005
Chapter 1: Introductionthe disposition of a case (e.g., temporaryholding of a juvenile in a detentionfacility while awaiting courtorderedplacement elsewhere).Data QualityJuvenile Court Statistics relies on thesecondary analysis of data originallycompiled by juvenile courts or juvenilejustice agencies to meet theirown information and reporting needs.Although these incoming data filesare not uniform across jurisdictions,they are likely to be more detailedand accurate than data files compiledby local jurisdictions merely complyingwith a mandated national reportingprogram.The heterogeneity of the contributeddata files greatly increases the complexityof the Archive’s data processingtasks. Contributing jurisdictionscollect and report information usingtheir own definitions and coding categories.Therefore, the detail reportedin some data sets is not contained inothers. Even when similar data elementsare used, they may have inconsistentdefinitions or overlappingcoding categories. The Archive restructurescontributed data into standardizedcoding categories in orderto combine information from multiplesources. The standardization processrequires an intimate understanding ofthe development, structure, and contentof each data set received. Codebooksand operation manuals arestudied, data providers interviewed,and data files analyzed to maximizethe understanding of each informationsystem. Every attempt is made toensure that only compatible informationfrom the various data sets isused in the standardized data files.While the heterogeneity of the dataadds complexity to the developmentof a national data file, it has proven tobe valuable in other ways. The diversityof the data stored in the NationalJuvenile Court Data Archive enablesthe data to support a wider range ofresearch efforts than would a uniform,and probably more general,data collection form. For example, theFederal Bureau of Investigation’s(FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reporting(UCR) Program is limited by necessityto a small number of relativelybroad offense codes. The UCR offensecode for larceny-theft combinesshoplifting with a number of otherlarcenies. Thus, the data are uselessfor studies of shoplifting. In comparison,many of the Archive’s data setsare sufficiently detailed to enable aresearcher to distinguish offensesthat are often combined in otherreporting series—shoplifting can bedistinguished from other larcenies,joyriding from motor vehicle theft,and armed robbery from unarmedrobbery. The diversity of these codingstructures allows researchers toconstruct data sets that contain thedetail demanded by their researchdesigns.Validity of the EstimatesThe national delinquency and statusoffense estimates presented in thisReport were generated with datafrom a large nonprobability sample ofjuvenile courts. Therefore, statisticalconfidence in the estimates cannot bemathematically determined. Althoughstatistical confidence would be greaterif a probability sampling designwere used, the cost of such an efforthas long been considered prohibitive.Secondary analysis of available datais the best practical alternative fordeveloping an understanding of theNation’s juvenile courts.National estimates of delinquencycases for 2005 are based on analysesof individual case records from 2,000courts and aggregate court-level dataon cases from more than 150additional courts. Together, thesecourts had jurisdiction over 80% ofthe U.S. juvenile population in 2005.National estimates of petitioned statusoffense cases for 2005 are basedon case records from nearly 2,000courts and court-level data frommore than 200 additional courts, covering77% of the juvenile population.The imputation and weighting proceduresthat generate national estimatesfrom these samples control formany factors: the size of a community,the age and race composition ofits juvenile population, the volume ofcases referred to the reportingcourts, the age and race of the juvenilesinvolved, the offense characteristicsof the cases, the courts’ responsesto the cases (manner ofhandling, detention, adjudication, anddisposition), and the nature of eachcourt’s jurisdictional responsibilities(i.e., upper age of originaljurisdiction).Structure of the ReportChapters 2 and 3 of this Report presentnational estimates of delinquencycases handled by the juvenile courtsin 2005 and analyze caseload trendssince 1985. Chapter 2 describes thevolume and rate of delinquencycases, demographic characteristics ofthe juveniles involved (age, gender,and race), and offenses charged.Chapter 3 traces the flow of delinquencycases from referral to courtthrough court processing, examiningeach decision point (i.e., detention,intake decision, adjudicationdecision, and judicial disposition)and presenting data by demographiccharacteristics and offense. Together,these two chapters provide a detailednational portrait of delinquencycases.Chapter 4 presents national estimatesof status offense cases formally handledby the juvenile courts in 2005and caseload trends since 1995. Itincludes data on demographic characteristics,offenses charged, and caseprocessing.Appendix A describes the statisticalprocedure used to generate these estimates.Readers are encouraged toJuvenile Court Statistics 2005 3
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Chapter 4National Estimates ofPetit
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Appendix A: MethodsCountof ies Numb
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Appendix A: MethodsJuvenile Populat
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Appendix A: Methodspotential donor
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Appendix BGlossary of TermsAdjudica
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Appendix B: Glossary of Terms◆◆
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Appendix B: Glossary of Termsfrom d
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Appendix C: Reported Juvenile Court
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IndexProbation, 89Trends, 76-78Offe
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